Euclid preparation. XXI. Intermediate-redshift contaminants in the search for $z>6$ galaxies within the Euclid Deep Survey

Euclid Collaboration,S. E. van Mierlo,K. I. Caputi, M. Ashby,H. Atek,M. Bolzonella,R. A. A. Bowler,G. Brammer,C. J. Conselice,J. Cuby,P. Dayal,A. Díaz-Sánchez,S. L. Finkelstein,H. Hoekstra,A. Humphrey,O. Ilbert,H. J. McCracken,B. Milvang-Jensen,P. A. Oesch,R. Pello,G. Rodighiero,M. Schirmer,S. Toft,J. R. Weaver,S. M. Wilkins,C. J. Willott,G. Zamorani,A. Amara,N. Auricchio,M. Baldi,R. Bender,C. Bodendorf,D. Bonino,E. Branchini,M. Brescia,J. Brinchmann,S. Camera,V. Capobianco,C. Carbone,J. Carretero,M. Castellano,S. Cavuoti,A. Cimatti,R. Cledassou,G. Congedo,L. Conversi,Y. Copin,L. Corcione,F. Courbin,A. Da Silva,H. Degaudenzi,M. Douspis,F. Dubath,X. Dupac,S. Dusini,S. Farrens,S. Ferriol,M. Frailis,E. Franceschi,P. Franzetti,M. Fumana,S. Galeotta,B. Garilli,W. Gillard,B. Gillis,C. Giocoli,A. Grazian,F. Grupp,S. V. H. Haugan,W. Holmes,F. Hormuth,A. Hornstrup,K. Jahnke,M. Kümmel,A. Kiessling,M. Kilbinger,T. Kitching,R. Kohley,M. Kunz,H. Kurki-Suonio,R. Laureijs,S. Ligori,P. B. Lilje,I. Lloro,E. Maiorano,O. Mansutti,O. Marggraf,K. Markovic,F. Marulli,R. Massey,S. Maurogordato,E. Medinaceli,M. Meneghetti,E. Merlin,G. Meylan,M. Moresco,L. Moscardini,E. Munari,S. M. Niemi,C. Padilla,S. Paltani,F. Pasian,K. Pedersen,V. Pettorino,S. Pires,M. Poncet,L. Popa,L. Pozzetti,F. Raison,A. Renzi,J. Rhodes,G. Riccio,E. Romelli,E. Rossetti,R. Saglia,D. Sapone,B. Sartoris,P. Schneider,A. Secroun,C. Sirignano,G. Sirri,L. Stanco,J. -L. Starck,C. Surace,P. Tallada-Crespí,A. N. Taylor,I. Tereno,R. Toledo-Moreo,F. Torradeflot,I. Tutusaus,E. A. Valentijn,L. Valenziano,T. Vassallo,Y. Wang,A. Zacchei,J. Zoubian,S. Andreon,S. Bardelli,A. Boucaud,J. Graciá-Carpio,D. Maino,N. Mauri,S. Mei,F. Sureau,E. Zucca,H. Aussel,C. Baccigalupi,A. Balaguera-Antolínez,A. Biviano,A. Blanchard,S. Borgani,E. Bozzo,C. Burigana,R. Cabanac,F. Calura,A. Cappi,C. S. Carvalho,S. Casas,G. Castignani,C. Colodro-Conde,A. R. Cooray,J. Coupon,H. M. Courtois,M. Crocce,O. Cucciati,S. Davini,H. Dole,J. A. Escartin,S. Escoffier,M. Fabricius,M. Farina,K. Ganga,J. García-Bellido,K. George,F. Giacomini,G. Gozaliasl,S. Gwyn,I. Hook,M. Huertas-Company,V. Kansal,A. Kashlinsky,E. Keihanen,C. C. Kirkpatrick,V. Lindholm,R. Maoli,M. Martinelli,N. Martinet,M. Maturi,R. B. Metcalf,P. Monaco,G. Morgante,A. A. Nucita,L. Patrizii,A. Peel,J. Pollack,V. Popa,C. Porciani,D. Potter,P. Reimberg,A. G. Sánchez,V. Scottez,E. Sefusatti,J. Stadel,R. Teyssier,J. Valiviita,M. Viel

ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS(2022)

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Abstract
(Abridged) The Euclid mission is expected to discover thousands of z>6 galaxies in three Deep Fields, which together will cover a ~40 deg2 area. However, the limited number of Euclid bands and availability of ancillary data could make the identification of z>6 galaxies challenging. In this work, we assess the degree of contamination by intermediate-redshift galaxies (z=1-5.8) expected for z>6 galaxies within the Euclid Deep Survey. This study is based on ~176,000 real galaxies at z=1-8 in a ~0.7 deg2 area selected from the UltraVISTA ultra-deep survey, and ~96,000 mock galaxies with 25.3$\leq$H<27.0, which altogether cover the range of magnitudes to be probed in the Euclid Deep Survey. We simulate Euclid and ancillary photometry from the fiducial, 28-band photometry, and fit spectral energy distributions (SEDs) to various combinations of these simulated data. Our study demonstrates that identifying z>6 with Euclid data alone will be very effective, with a z>6 recovery of 91(88)% for bright (faint) galaxies. For the UltraVISTA-like bright sample, the percentage of z=1-5.8 contaminants amongst apparent z>6 galaxies as observed with Euclid alone is 18%, which is reduced to 4(13)% by including ultra-deep Rubin (Spitzer) photometry. Conversely, for the faint mock sample, the contamination fraction with Euclid alone is considerably higher at 39%, and minimized to 7% when including ultra-deep Rubin data. For UltraVISTA-like bright galaxies, we find that Euclid (I-Y)>2.8 and (Y-J)<1.4 colour criteria can separate contaminants from true z>6 galaxies, although these are applicable to only 54% of the contaminants, as many have unconstrained (I-Y) colours. In the most optimistic scenario, these cuts reduce the contamination fraction to 1% whilst preserving 81% of the fiducial z>6 sample. For the faint mock sample, colour cuts are infeasible.
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Key words
galaxies: high-redshift,galaxies: evolution,galaxies: photometry
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